fermented dilly beans. homemade preserved.

This is the time of year to carry stacks of Ball (or Kerr) jars home for epic preserving projects. At least, that's been my reality of late, with so much produce--beets, onions, garlic, cabbage, basil, corn, tomatoes, zucchini--to deal with. It is always exciting to think up the possibilities for preserving these harvests, whether they are from the backyard garden, local farm, or farmer's market. Last year I was focused on the canning process as a way of preserving food as jams, pickles, and sauces, though I am becoming more versed in fermentation as an easier and more nutritious form of putting up the summer harvest.


Pickles are technically anything preserved by acidity. Canned pickles have been brined in an acidic solution, which is usually vinegar, and canned in the boiling water method at home. This allows the pickles to be shelf stable and last long. Some pickles, like the zesty dilly beans here, are fermented and 'pickled' in a salt water brine, where yeasts and bacterias produce their own acidic environment that preserve the food for us to enjoy. Instead of killing all microorganisms to sterilize the pickles as in "quick" pickles, fermenting cultivates a specific probiotic environment that preserves the food and many of the nutrients lost in boiling and cooking. 

Fermented foods are incredibly good for our health! The bacteria that ferments food, often our friend lactobacillus, not only preserve the good nutrients in the veggies being pickled, but also produce healthy enzymes and vitamins during their metabolism, which enhances the food's overall nutrition. In addition, probiotic food like these support healthy digestion by supplementing and assisting our very own gut flora living in the digestive tract. So much of our physical and mental health has been correlated to our unique microbiomes, or the billions of microbes living in our gut. There are many factors that contribute to a healthy gut, and eating fermented vegetable, which contain living active cultures, is a great way to boost your microbial ecosystem and your overall health. 

fresh ginger peach butter. homemade preserved.

More peaches please! I am so inspired by summer fruits, and here is yet another peach rendition that incorporates fresh ginger for a surprising zing! Making peach butter is very simple, and only takes time for the fruity puree to thicken into a magical, spreadable, incomprehensible treat. Spread it on toast with chevre or topped on morning yogurt.

For the peaches, choose ripe fruit that is soft but not squishy, and a little firm. 'Freestone' varieties are easier to pit, since they do not cling to the flesh of the fruit like 'clingstone' varieties do, though you can use either. You can peel the peaches if you like, though I am an avid peel activist and almost always leave it on. Once the peaches cook down and you blend it into a puree, the skins almost disappear. Peel at your own discretion. You can cook the peach butter down as long as you like to get a thicker consistency. The longer you cook, the thicker the butter.

lavender peach cornmeal cake. homemade sweets.

Is there a more succulent symbol of summertime than the over-juicy peach ripening in the August heat? Sticky sweet juice runs down chins so much that it makes you hunch over crooked to eat them on the grass. This is the peak of summer, when the grass is golden and crisp and the fruit hangs low and juicy. Fruit is the savior of summer, as the temperature runs high. For me, there is no exception for making a dessert without this abundant fruit. 

And here in my house, we have boxes of fresh peaches from a local and organic U-Pick farm. When we aren't growing much of our own fruit, u-pick is the next best thing. Yes, you may throw down $40-80 on buckets of cherries, or boxes of peaches, but when you store them correctly, it is so worth it. When we gather pounds and pounds of this fruit, all other projects stop, and we focus on freezing, canning, and gorging on the fresh, perishable fruit. This fruit is not like the fruit at the store that travels far and sits on the shelf without bruising or browning. This is picked when it is ripe, and needs to be dealt with quickly. I like to make many different types of food with the fresh fruit while we have it, from sweet to savory versions. 

With the peaches, I love making pie of course, as well as peach salsa, ginger peach butter, and peach cobbler. This recipe for lavender peach cornmeal cake adds some fun texture and herbal flavor to a fruit dessert. It was tough to decide between using lavender or rosemary to accompany the peaches in this dessert, and I think both are delicious. This recipe utilizes lavender, but you could omit the herbs all together, or try using other herbs or spices like thyme or cinnamon. Serve it for dessert with ice cream, and then eat it for breakfast with morning coffee or tea, and with another fresh peach of course. Savor the flavor of summer and gorge on some juicy peaches. 

toast with tart plum preserves, honey ricotta, and lemon basil. homemade snacks

Toast, such a homey comfort. And in some cafes, toast is now also a high end, hip offering of creative flavors layered on a dependable toasty canvas. In this case, the toast is an important crusty vessel for seasonal goodies, creamy, tangy, piled high or spread thin for ultimate snacking enjoyment.

Plums have started ripening, and I immediately felt impelled to can some into not-too-sweet plum preserves. These plums are incredible, and covered in a frosty coating of natural yeasts while hanging languid and ready on the packed tree. Bursting with a tart sweet zing and plummy goodness. Perfect spread on toast with butter or a nut butter for a quick toast snack. 

decoding sugar. homemade knowledge.

Can you tell the difference between turbinado sugar and sucanat? First off, what is sucanat? And what's the deal with coconut sugar? Fad or friend? Is there a difference between cane sugar and sugar beet sugar? So many sweet questions! Throw molasses, honey, brown rice syrup, and maple syrup into the mix, and you've got a motley crew of sweeteners to choose from to stock your whole foods pantry. So let's lay these sugars out, clean and simple, and dig into the big bag of sugar and its saccharine rise into our modern culture. 

Sugar is an organic substance created by plants (and bees help out too) rather than a mineral substance, like salt. It has been enjoyed by creatures for millennia in the form of fruit sugars and later on in the form of honey, which has been used by humans for over 20,000 years according to cave paintings. Humans have found complex ways to alter sugar, and today we have an overwhelming diversity of the sweet stuff. 

There are many variations of sugar defined by the molecular structure, the source, and the refining process. Sugar occurring naturally in fruit (fructose) and milk (lactose) are called natural sugars, while added sugars are just that; added to a product to increase the sweetness. There are natural caloric sweeteners, like honey and maple syrup, which contain trace minerals and have different effects on the body than the standard granulated sugars. 

salt crusted new potatoes. homemade eats

We were weeding our four beds of onions today and came across some volunteer potatoes that we had let grow amidst the onions. The plants were big, and we pulled them out along with two to three small bright potatoes. Just by weeding a few plants out, we got about three pounds of red, fingerling, and dark purple potatoes. They were beautiful in the dark soil, and so exciting to harvest.

Harvesting volunteers is so gratifying. Its almost a "free lunch," since there was no planning or maintenance involved to grow the food. And we make lunch from them. We like to keep some "wild" in our farm and garden. It often surprises me on how much life overflows without too much human control. There is so much food out there just growing on its own, if only we are there to see it. 

put an egg on it (in 25 ways). homemade adundance.

Eggs are magical to me. These little golden chicken embryos are incredibly versatile, healthful, and completely delicious. And like I've said before, very plentiful for me. Currently there are 10 dozen in the house, and probably a few more being produced as we speak. I've really opened up my mind and belly to all things eggs, and have enjoyed incorporating them into my daily diet. 

As with many inventions, creation comes from necessity, and when you have eggs piling up and you really don't want to eat anymore hard-boiled eggs for goodness sake, new eggy recipes form and flourish. We all know how important eggs are for creating structure in our baked goods, and that we always need one or two on hand for spontaneous morning pancakes, but there are so many egg-licious ways to incorporate these protein-packed pockets of goodness into many of your ordinary recipes.

mason maple custards with blueberry sauce. homemade sweets.

It seems as though I make a lot of sweets on this blog. I definitely don't just eat custards and cookies and galettes every day, and I think I post sweets more often because making them is such special occasion for me. It's something for a community dinner, or just a surprise treat for friends (a usually very well-received treat!). Plus, I do work towards manipulating dessert recipes in order to make them lighter or at least more nutrient-dense. Take this recipe, for example, which replaces heavy cream for (preferably organic) whole milk and maple syrup and sucanat rather than white sugar. 

Not all sugar is created equal, nor eggs or milk or anything for that matter. There is a whole spectrum for every ingredients that goes from chemical-laden, shelf-stable, nutrient-poor foods to homegrown, organic, freshly picked foods that are packed with nutrients and life. This has been a theme for me throughout my personal journey towards health and wellbeing. Not all food is created equal. That fuji apple will be different on every tree, on every farm, grown by every different method. 

seeded buckwheat cookies. homemade not-too-sweets.

I have some lovely gluten-free friends. Though I am on a strict gluten-lots diets (wink), I love experimenting for my wheatless companions. There are so many beautiful grains with completely different flavors, textures, and baking effects. Wheat gets a lot of the spotlight, and its gluten power is quite incredible for making light, chewy loaves of bread with epic crust. But what about emmer? And buckwheat? And kamut and oats and brown rice and einkorn and barley and rye and spelt and millet and sorghum and teff and amaranth and quinoa? Many of these so-called "ancient grains" are extremely nutritious and very different

wild spring kale salad with tahini miso dressing. homemade healthy

Wild edibles are popping up everywhere, from juicy chickweed to bitter dandelion to sticky cleavers. Miner's lettuce is sprouting from the moist shade of trees; a delicious and refreshing snack to come upon on a hike. All we have ready to harvest is kale, a flat-leaf red russian variety that is so sweet and tender right now. Eating it raw in a salad has been my go-to lunch almost every day this early spring.

Mixing the kale with the freshly picked wild edibles is a fun variety of flavors and textures, and the combo packs dense nutrients into a delicious meal. Wild foods contain more phytonutrients and minerals than the modern cultivated varieties, as much of the nutrition has been bred out for other traits, like drought-resistance, size, taste, color, and shelf life. An article written by one of my UC Berkeley professors, Katherine Milton, argues that the prevalence of wild foods in the hunter-gatherer diet of our Homo sapien ancestors protected them from diseases of affluence: type II diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. that are so widespread today. These foods are different than our tame apples and spinach. Very different.